By Marjory Inglis, health reporter

A PENDING crisis in kidney care across Tayside could be solved by the introduction of a prefabricated building.

A top executive is investigating the feasibility of setting up temporary premises to cope with the rising numbers of patients requiring dialysis.

The existing renal dialysis unit at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee, is under strain, struggling to cope with the numbers of patients dependent on its life-saving machines.

Just last year the numbers requiring regular dialysis hovered around 130 but now there are 145 patients spending several hours a day, several times a week on the machines.

The Ninewells unit serves patients from across Tayside and north-east Fife, but plans for a new unit at Perth Royal Infirmary are well advanced.

However health bosses now fear they will have to take action to cope with the huge demand for dialysis before the Perth unit opens.

Construction is not expected to start at PRI until May or June, with the building ready for patients around March next year.

At a meeting of NHS Tayside’s acute services committee in Ninewells yesterday, acute division chief executive Gerry Marr said he had asked a colleague to look into dialysis in a temporary building.

“I was down south last week and came across a dialysis unit that was stand-alone in the middle of a community,” said Mr Marr, adding it was a prefabricated building able to be put in place quickly.

He said the pressure on Tayside’s renal service was “absolutely enormous” and was affecting the ability to keep trained staff working in the Ninewells unit.

Mr Marr said, “We have got to find some way to take the pressure off.”

Finance director Colin Masson said there was also a proposal to increase the number of consultants in the renal service.

Chairman Murray Petrie acknowledged the pressure on staff but said there was also pressure on patients who travelled huge distances to attend Ninewells.

“The pressure on people who travel is unbelievable,” said Mr Petrie.

Medical director Professor Stewart Forsyth said, “We are at the limit of our capacity in the (Ninewells) renal unit, even with dialysis sessions finishing at midnight and patients having to go home after that. It’s very unsatisfactory.”

The renal unit at Ninewells was opened five years ago with more dialysis stations than the cramped unit it replaced.

However a rising trend of patients requiring dialysis quickly put the premises under pressure.

Late last year an extra two dialysis stations were created in a bid to ease the pressure, but that does not seem to be enough to cope until the Perth unit opens.

Mr Marr said a prefabricated building kitted out with the required specialist equipment could fill the gap and accommodate patients for 18 months to two years until the PRI service is established.

“Something like that is not necessarily ideal but would create more capacity,” said Mr Marr.

Health bosses and the local community in Angus also have ambitions to establish dialysis services in the county.

“We have always had strong representation from the Angus community that we should eventually provide renal services there,” said Mr Marr.

He said there would be enough patients with renal failure in Angus to justify such a development, but it was “not in any immediate plan.”